Abby and Nathan at it AGAIN! (Their voice explains so much)
From ABBY:
We've had many questions this past week about availability and timing on fruiting crops, so I thought it would be helpful to give a little more info on the seasonality of the crops we grow at Featherstone and the changes you see in your boxes throughout the year.
As you know, growing in Minnesota means we have to grow, plant, and EAT with the rhythms of the seasons. Compared to our produce growing friends in California, we have a much shorter growing season and very specific windows for when each crop is available. We also depend on storage crops (and high tunnels!) to keep us fed during the winter. For example, cool season crops like kale and broccoli and spinach really thrive and taste best during the spring and especially during late fall. During May and June, we enjoy a lot more of these leafy crops while we wait for the fruits to come on. We usually expect to see fruiting crops like cucumbers and zucchini in July, and tomatoes and peppers and watermelon in early August. When you're growing OUTSIDE, exact crop availability and harvest can really vary from year to year depending on weather and especially temperature. SO if you're wondering why you haven't seen many tomatoes yet this year, just hold tight! Fruiting crops do NOT ripen quickly or well with nights in the low 50s like we've been experiencing the past couple weeks. They're just starting to come on, and hopefully with some warm weather, we'll see larger harvests down the road.
Another factor to keep in mind is that fruiting crops do NOT like constantly wet weather and torrential rainfalls like we have seen throughout the 2024 growing season. This has been the wettest season in my 11 years at Featherstone Farm, and it's simply not going to be an awesome year for fruits. Wet weather allows foliar disease to thrive which can quickly defoliate plants and really narrow the window of time we have for nice harvests. You can have faith though, that we are prioritizing our CSA customers to make sure you all are seeing a great mix of crops from week to week. We hope that you all, as partners in this wild ride growing organic veggies in Minnesota (where weather and rain are SO unpredictable) will really enjoy the crops that ARE thriving as we move through the different seasons of local veg! This relationship is the foundation for the Community Supported Agriculture movement, and it allows us to continue to grow for all of you year in and year out, even when the climate throws us some real curve balls.
And now, some things I am particularly excited about coming during the second half of the season include:
-Tomatillos! We haven't grown these in many years, and it seems like we may have a pretty prolific crop coming. Fingers crossed the weather cooperates!
-Carmen peppers. Absolutely my favorite thing to eat raw from the fields. I'd rather eat a fresh red carmen pepper than an apple! They're still a couple weeks out but hold tight! They will be worth the wait.
-Celery! I'm growing celery for the first time in our summer high tunnels and they look and taste amazing! I'm hoping to let them keep growing as large as possible until mid-September when we have to clear out the tunnels for winter spinach!
-Cabbage. Maybe not the most exciting thing for everyone. But I personally LOVE fresh cabbage, and we have a great crop coming down the pipeline. I'm especially excited about the gorgeous red savoy cabbages I'm growing for CSA! I can't wait for you all to see them.
Abby
From Nathan:
We've had a lot of questions about allocation and how do the vegetables get into shares. So, here's a peek into how we set up your CSA box each week. Every Friday morning my team and I go into the fields and check what is likely to be harvested this weekend. These will be the foundational building blocks of your share. We are looking at predictable crops like kale or green peppers, but also unpredictable crops like watermelons, cucumbers, and cilantro. It is a group process, and we do our best to be as accurate as possible. 95% of the time we hit those targets! Around noon on Friday, I finalize the list and put it into the CSAware program and send it out to all of our members.
Recently some members have been asking why they haven't gotten crops they want in their shares like peppers, cucumbers, basil, etc. My strong perception is that there are a couple things going on here.
· One is certainly limited availability in some items. It is hard to produce enough high-quality basil for 1200 shares after a torrential rainstorm. And it's hard to nail the bell curve on peppers to make sure there is enough for everyone. (Most crops ripen like a bell curve- a few ready at first, tons ready in the middle, and then much less again at the end of the harvest period, Timing is very much affected by temperature.)
· We are doubling down on the CSA program and making it a strong priority to always ensure CSA members get valuable crops before they go to the wholesale side of things. But sometimes the timing just happens to be off, and we wind up sending something to our Wholesale program because it will not wait (and be at peak freshness for you!) until the next CSA box comes around. Think this sounds confusing? It sure is! It's no small task predicting exactly when and how much of each crop will be ready 3, 5, 10, 14 days from now and getting them to the right customer at peak freshness amidst wild swings in weather. But we have a great team, and we do our best!
We have many foundational items through the season that stick around from week to week. Kale, parsleys, cabbages, etc. These are season long staple crops for us that are almost always an option in your shares. Other crops are more difficult to grow and seasonal. Their difficulty and seasonality make them more exciting and popular, but it's also what makes it harder to get them into every share each week. Again, we are trying our very best to get you a steady supply of the finicky, sexy crops but it's also the bread-and-butter staple crops that keep the CSA Program running year round.
As you've heard us talk about this year many times already, we are dealing with a very wet cold summer so far. This is especially impactful on FRUITING CROPS. Aggressive foliar disease in tomatoes, blossom drop in melons and strawberries, driving rain and no drying conditions in leafy greens and lettuces. All lead to very difficult growing conditions that do impact availability. What makes you all so valuable as CSA members is your understanding and support as we navigate this situation together.
Investing in the farm and believing in what we are doing both during the A+ season and the D+ season is what sets our CSA members apart from our everyday wholesale customers in local markets. The CSA Program and members being the backbone of the farm keeps us afloat during challenging growing seasons like this one and we can't say enough how much we appreciate your commitment to our farm.
Another thing to remember is the CSAware program allocates based on your preference settings that you set at the beginning of the year. This is why it is so important to set those preferences and to make sure you are checking your box each week to make sure you are getting the veggies you want to be getting. Yes, there are times we simply don't have enough of a crop to go around, but really utilizing the choice selection software does make your share adjustable to your liking. So, make sure to hop on and play with these customization tools.
We thank you for your patience with this. It is still a learning curve for us too! We have historically been just a normal "farmer's choice" CSA Program, with no customization available for your preferences. Over the past several years we have experimented with multiple platforms to create a choice CSA. We feel it is 95% good, but it still comes with challenges and we appreciate your patience while we work through the realities of customization software together!
Gratefully,
Nathan